Ignition system



A. 0. DE LORM'E.

IGNITION SYSTEM. APPLICATION man 0012's, 191?.

Patented Nov. 30, 1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET I.

A. c. m: LORME. IGNITION SYSTEM.

APPL'LCATIQN FILED OCT-29,1917,

Patented Nov. 30, 1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

UNITED STATES ALFRED C. DE

PATENT OFFICE.

LORME, OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR T0 SPLITDORF ELECTRICALCOMPANY, OF NEWARK, NEW JERSEY.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed October 29, 1917. Serial No. 199,136.

T 0 all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALFRED C. DE LoRMn, a citizen of the United States,residing at East Orange, in the county of Essex'and State of New Jersey,have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Ignition Systems,of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to the method of firing the fuel charges in aninternal combustion engine, particularly of the multi-cylinder type. Thesystem which will be described herein relates to the method of firing aneight cylinder V engine in which the angle between the cylinders is 45degrees.

An application filed by Carl T. Mason and William J. Hart, on October16,1917,

Serial No. 196,804, describes the special arrangements which must beadopted to fire an engine of this character and sets forth means foraccomplishing the result. My invention is directed to improvements ofcertain details of the above mentioned application and hence much of thedescriptive matter thereof will be found inthis application in order tomake the same clearly. understood, but no claim is made for the broadinvention set forth in the above mentioned application.

In an eight cylinder engine of the four cycle type four ignition sparksare required for each revolution of the crank shatter one spark forevery 90 degrees of rotation of the said shaft. The ordinary two poletype of magneto delivers two sparks substantially symmetrical for eachrevolution of the armature or rotor; hence to get four sparks themagneto would have to be driven at twice crank shaft speed. i It is at'once seen that these sparks occur for every 90 degrees of rotation ofthe crank shaft and in order to use a' magneto to fire multi-cylinderengines, for example an eight cylinder one, it has been customary, inthe past, to

lace the cylinders at an angle of 90 degrees.

here the cylinders are placed at an angle of 45 degrees it becomesevident that the sparks must be delivered at intervals of 45 and 135degrees of crank shaft rotation and it is at once seen that the'ordinarymagneto or ignition system cannot be utilized. In the said Mason-Hartapplication the problem was solved in a unique manner by using a magnetoof the Dixie ty e, as set forth in Patent 1,226,233, issued ay 15, 1917,to

in asymmetrical Charles T. Mason, wherein there is an adjustable fieldstructure carrying the high,

tension coil having the usual primary and secondary windings and a rotoroperating in connection with the field structure which ducing tourimpulses per revolution it will be seen that the cam will act tosuppress two of the current impulses which the rotor is capable ofgenerating and. utilizes the. other two at unequal intervals, that is,90 and 270 degrees of rotation of the rotor. By driving the rotor attwice the speed of the engine crank shaft the necessary four sparks areproduced but asymmetrically spaced 90 and 270 degrees of angularity oithe retor but since this runs twice engine crank shaft speed theangularity referred thereto will be 45 and 135 degrees. Hencesubstantially symmetrical sparks are produced but eriods of time.

After the spar s are generated, as above described, they must bedelivered to the various engine cylinders in the proper order. In thesaid Mason-Hart application the contact segments in the distrihuterblock are arranged in such angular order that two sparks follow eachother at intervals of 22?;

Patented Nov. 30, 1920.

to these angles from which it is seen that the distributer block must hemade relatively large in order to give sufficient space be tween the twocontacts that are 522%} degrees apart so that the distributer brushcarried by the distributer finger will not leave a track between thesaid two contacts sufiicient to cause the spark to jump from one to theother.

My invention is directed more particularly to improvements in thedistribution parts of the system rather than to the generating part. Infact, I have used the same enerating device as shown in the saidMason-Hart application. In addition to the distributing means for theservice magneto,

I have shown a source of starting ignition current which is required forstarting large engines on compression as set forth in the saidMason-Hart application and which will not be described at length herein.

In my application Serial No. 199,134 filed October 29, 1917, I haveshown a distributing device consisting of a block carrying contacts thatare equally spaced apart and a double ended distributing finger fordistributing the sparking current to the contacts in such a manner as tofulfil the firing conditions of the engines. In a companion application,Serial No. 199,135, filed October 29, 1917, I have shown and describedanother distribut'in device for the purpose at hand. In the saidMason-Hart application and my two co-pending applications above refercdto it is almost necessary that the distributing device consist of theblock and rotating finger or its equivalent be placed on the engineotherwise the magneto must be built considerably out of proportion inorder to accommodate such a large distributor block.

The invention covered by this application is directed to the designingof a distributing device which may be mounted on the magneto withoutmaterially increasing the size of the distributer block over that usedin ordinary work involving the use of the same number of enginecylinders.

By having the distributing block and finger part of the magneto itselfthe work of assembling and testin the ignition circuits is very muchsimplified although it is to be understood that the block and rotatingfinger may be placed on the engine separate from the magneto.

In the drawings, Figure 1 illustrates amagneto suitable for the purpose,having a.

portion broken away to show the rotor.

Fig. 2 is a diagrammatic view of my ignition system.

Fig. 3 shows an alternative form of distributer block and rotatingfinger.

Referring now to the details, in which like numbers refer tocorresponding parts in the various views, 1 illustrates a ma neto of theDixie type having a rotor with four lobes 2, 3 and 4 of which areclearly seen. The other lobe being directly behind 1 is not visible.Field structure 5 carries a. high tension coil 6 having primary windingP and secondary winding S. On the end of the rotor and inclosed withinthe breaker box cover 7 is a circuit breaker shown somewhatdiagrammatically in Fig. 2. One end of the primary winding P isconnected to an adjustable contact 8 which cooperates with the movablecontact 9 on the breaker arm 10 which is grounded at G. The condenser 11is connected across the breaker points 8 and 9. A cam 12 is attached tothe breaker end of the rotor and as shown in Fig. 2 has opened thecontacts 8 and 9 at the point 13. After the bumper 14: has passed overthe point 13, the breaker arm closes the contacts 8 and 9 and when thepoint 15 is reached by bumper 14 the contacts 8 and 9 are again openedand held open until the point 16 is reached, which is preferably about180 degrees from the point 15, which in turn is approximately 90 degreesfrom the point 13. The angular distance from 16 to 13 is made sufiicientto allow the mag netic flux time to build up through the core of thecoil so that the distance from 15 to 16 may be made more or less than180 degrees but preferably more. While the cam 12 has been acting on thebreaker arm 16, in the manner described, the rotor has made one completerevolution and on account of the four lobes would have produced fourmagnetic impulses through the coil 6 had the primary circuit P not beenheld open in the manner described. It has been found that the holdingopen of the primary for this period of time is advantageous in' that itgives the iron in the magnetic circuit an opportunity to rest, orrecuperate, as it were, by removing the effects of the coil windings onthe iron and even though the rotor is driven at twice engine crank shaftspeed the two sparks delivered for one revolution of the rotor will stayin at speeds of the rotor greatly in excess of that required. That is tosay, the two sparks delivered as above described will stay in at a muchhigher speed of the rotor than they would it the rotor were producingfour sparks from the coil of which it is capable. Hence an apparentdisadvantage, that is, running the magneto at twice crank shaft speed,has been turned into a real advantage.

Inasmuch as the principles of operation of the Dixie magneto have beendescribed in numerous patents to Charles T. Mason. one of which is1,226,233, issued May 15, 1917, which also shows a method of bringingout the outer end of the high tension winding of the ignition coil tothe rotating member of the distributer, further description of themagneto does not appear necessary to make my invention clear to-oneskilled in the art.

Referring to Fig. 2, 19 is a part section in perspective of distributerblock 18. Mounted on the interior of the block 19, preferably moldedtherein. are two rows of contacts arranged four in each row. In thesection 19 but two of the contacts 20-22 and 21--23 in each row areshown. The distributing member or rotating finger 2 1 carries two moredistributer brushes 25 and 26 which are electrically connected togetherand by means of a suitable connector passing through the stem 17 theyare connected with the high tension winding S of the coil 6. The brushes25 and 26 are set in two different adiacent planes one 22% do ees inadvance of the other while the distrlbuter block contacts, such as 20and 21 are placed in line with each other as shown in Fig. 2. Thedistributor finger 24; also carries two sparking points 27 and 28 whichare electrically connected together and to contact 29 in the end of thedistributing member 24. In distributor block 18 a terminal 30 is adaptedto receive a wire coming from the secondary s of the starting magnetowhich has a primary p and breaker arm 31 and cam 32. In Fig. 2 the brushconnection between terminal 30 and contact 29 is not shown for the sakeof simplicity in drawing. The brushes 27 and 28 are set in retardedposition with respect to brushes 25 and 26.

1n the operation of the service magneto as the distributing finger 24rotates in the direction of the arrowbrush 25 engages contact 20 whichconnected to the proper spark plug. Since the next spark required mustcover 22-} degrees of rotation of the distributing finger it will beseen that this condition is met when brush 26 engages the contact 21 at,which time the brush 25 has moved forward 22-1- degreesahead of contact20 which is 67- degrees from contact 22, the same being 90 degrees fromcontact 20. Therefore, the next current impulse from the generator isdelivered by brush 25 to contact 22 and thence to the proper spark plugand so on for a complete rotation of the distributing finger 24:, itbeing understood that this is geared to rotate at one half engine crankshaft speed.

The starting magneto may be of any construction or a battery and coilmay be used instead. The connection to the starting con tacts 27 and 28being as previously described. The contacts 27 and 28 it beingunderstood are placed with reference to brushes 25 and 26 so that theyare opposite the proper distributor block contact for starting theengine on compression by operation of the auxiliary or starting mag netoor its equivalent. be starting spark contacts are shown of the jump-typebut wipe spark brushes the same as 25 and 26 may be used but where thestarting contacts are used only occasionally and for short in tervals oftime the jump-spark eliminates brush wear.

Instead of havingthe contacts in the dis tributer block symmetricallyarranged degrees apart in two rows and staggering the brushes in therotating finger the proper amount, I may reverse the procedure andarrange the contacts in one row in a distribu ter block so that they aredisplaced 22% do" I grees from the contacts in the other row, in.

which case the service brushes on thedistributing finger are arrangedside'by' side but in two different planes. This alternative arrangementis shown in Fig. 3where the same numbers refer to corresponding parts. Aglance at Fig. 3 will make this arrangement clearwithout furtherdescription.

In order to secure the maximum distance between the two rows of contactsin the dis tributer block I make use of a groove 33 arranged between thesaid rows and a corresponding ridge 3 5: on the distributing finger. Itis apparent that the position of the groove and ridge may be reversed.Various other modifications may be made in the numerous details, all ofwhich will understood by those skilled in the art, "hout departing fromthe spirit of my i or the scope of the appended claims.

Having thus described my invention what I claim is 1. In an ignitionsystem, a generator hav ing an exciting field, a generating coil and; arotor separate from said generating coil and having means to produce aplurality of E. M. F. peaks in said winding i or each rotation of therotor, a circuit breaker for selecting certain of said peaks atalternately longer and shorter intervals, in combination with adistributing device consisting of a block having two rows of contactsspaced apart in each row and a rotary dis tributing member provided withmeans for distributing to said contacts long and short intervals thesore currents due to the corresponding E. changes pro duced and selectedin the genera" winding for successive rotations of the rotor.

2. In an ignition sys'ten, a generator hav ing an exciting field, agenerating winding, and a rotor with a plurality of members each adaptedto vary the flux from the through the winding during each rotation ofthe rotor, whereby a plurality of symmetrically varying lil. M. F. andcurrent waves can be produced for each rotation, a circuit breaker forselecting certain of said peaks at alternately longer intervals,inromhination with a distributing vice consisting of a block having tworows of contacts equally spaced apart in each row and a member geared insynchronism with the rotor and provided with means to distribute saidcurrents asymmetrically first to a contact in one row then to a contactin the other row successively when said current and E. M. E. wavesselected are at a maximum and during the successive rotations of therotor and the distributing member.

3. In an ignition system, a generator having an exciting field, agenerating winding, and a rotor with a plurality of members each adaptedto vary the flux from the held through the winding through each rotationof the rotor. whereby a plurality of symmetrically varying E. M. F. ascurrent waves can be produced for each rotaaon, in

combination with. a distributing device conslsting of a block having tworows of com tacts equally spaced apart in each row and a member gearedin synchronism with the rotor and provided with means to distribute saidcurrent asymmetrically, but successively in each row and alternatingfrom. one row to the other to said contacts when said current and E. M.F. waves are at a maximum and during the successive rotations of therotor and the distributing member, together with a circuit breaker alsodriven with the rotor and adapted to produce a plurality'of breaks andthereby a plurality of discharges at alternately longer and shorterintervals from the winding through the distributer, at predeterminedpoints on the several M. F. waves, for each rotation of the rotor, andmeans for varying the time of the breaks relatively to their respectiveE. M. F. waves.

4:. in an ignition system, a generator adapted to produce tour E. M. F.and current waves for each rotation of its rotor, a distributing deviceconsisting of a block and rotary distributing member and a circuitbreaker driven with the rotor, the block carrying two rows ofsymmetrically arranged, in each row, distributing terminals, saiddistributing member acting to distribute the current waves or impulsesamong the terminals in asymmetrical intervals, said circuit breakeradapted to in successive asymmetrical periods break and thereby causesuccessive asymmetrical discharges due to the said E. M. F. wavesthrough the circuits successively established in alternate rows by thedistributing member.

In an ignition system, a generator adapted to produce four E. M. l. andcurrent waves for each rotation of its rotor, a circuit breaker adaptedto produce successively in asymmetrical intervals one half of thecorresponding plurality of breaks and discharges for each rotation ofthe rotor,' and a distributing device consisting of a stationary blockcarrying contacts equally spaced in two rows and a distributing memberconstructed, connected and driven so as to distribute the correspondingsuccessive and asymmetrically timed discharges to successive contacts inalternate rows in the block.

6. in a system of the class desribed, means for generating anddistributing current impulses into a plurality of distribution circuitssuch as the sparking circuits of a multi-cylinder engine, comprising afield, a generating coil, and a rotor rotating in said field and adaptedto produce in said coil four impulses per revolution. and a distributing member electrically connected to the coil and mechanicallyconnected to syn- .oncuisly operate with the rotor through ng gears.whereby said rotor will make ty of revolutions "for each single aion or"the distributing member, means carried by said rotor for selecting atsud cessive asymmetrical periods two of the four impulses capable ofbeing generated by said rotor, a block and a number of distribu tionterminals therein equally spaced in two rows and equal to the wholenumber of cir cuits to be served, with means to connect said coilsuccessively in alternate rows to each one of said terminals during eachrevolution of the distributing member.

7. In a system of the class described, means for generating anddistributing current impulses into a plurality of distribution circuitssuch as the sparking circuits of a multi-cylinder engine, comprising afield, a generating coil, and a rotor rotatingin said field and adaptedto produce in said coil four impulses per revolution, and a distributingmember electrically connected to the coil and mechanically connected tosynchronously operate with the rotor through reducing gears, wherebysaid rotor will make a plurality of revolutions for each singlerevolution of the distributing member, a block having a number ofdistribution terminals therein symmertically spaced in two rows andequal to the whole number of circuits to be served, with means includingthe distributing member to connect said coil successively in alternaterows to each one of said terminals during each revolution of thedistributing member, together with an interrupter driven with the rotorand adapted to render the discharge circuit from the coil operative atsuccessive unequal intervals at a predetermined point on the E. M. F.and current wave of only two impulses. said other two impulses beingsuppressed.

8. In an ignition dynamo for multi-circuit distribution, 'a field, agenerating coil, a rotor having two elements each with a plurality ofarms whereby a corresponding plurality of current reversals may beproduced in the coil at each revolution of the rotor, means forselecting in successive asynchronous periods only a part in number ofthe current reversals which may be produced, a distributing deviceconsisting of a block and rotary member, said block carrying terminalcontacts equally spaced apart in twoadjacent rows, said rotary memberserving -as means for receiving the asynchronous timed current impulsesand delivering them in rotation in alternate rows among the distributionterminal contacts.

9. in an ignition system -for eight cylinder i5 degree four cycleinternal combustion engines, a generator adapted to be driven at twiceengine crank shaft speed and having a sourceof magnetic flux, agenerating coil, a rotating element adapted to direct the flux throughsaid coil in combination with means to produce two current impulsesspaced to and 135 degrees apart when referred to said engine crankshaft, a distributing device having as an element a distributer blockhaving terminals equally spaced 90 degrees apart in two rows with meansfor connection to sparking devices in said engine cylinders, adistributer finger associated with said block with means for drivingsaid finger at one half engine crank shaft sneed, a pair of brushescarried in the end of said finger for contacting with said blockterminals as the finger rotates, said brushes being angularly spaced221} degrees from each other and set in different planes to correspondwith said rows of terminals, with means for connecting to said coil asand for the purpose described.

10. In an ignition s stem for eight cylinder degree four cyclb internalcombustion engines, a generator adapted to be driven at twice enginecrank shaft speed and having a source of magnetic flux, a'generatingcoil, a rotating element adapted to direct the flux through said coil incombination with means to produce two current impulses spaced 4:") and135 degrees apart when referred to said engine crank shaft, adistributing block having terminals equally spaced 90 degrees apart intwo rows with means for connection to sparking devices in said enginecylinders. a distributor finger carrying a pair of brushes angularlydisplaced 224; degrees in two planes to correspond with said rows ofterminals inside said block geared to be driven at one half engine crankshaft speed. and having means for connecting a terminal of thegenerating coilthereto, whereby current is delivered to said blockterminals at proper firing intervals, an auxiliary ignition generator, aterminal on said block adapted to be connected to said generator, abrush associated with the distributing finger in running contact withthe last mentioned terminal, a pair of distributing contacts connecl'edto the last mentioned brush and adapted to conduct sparking current tosaid distributer block terminals when said auxiliary generator isoperated in the manner described.

11. The combination with an eight cylinder 45 degree four cycle internalcombustion engine and a sparking device constructed to deliver tourcurrent impulses when driven at twice the engine crank shaft speed, of adistributing mechanism comprising a rotating finger geared to rotate atone fourth of the speed of the rotating element of the sparking deviceand a distribute! block havl2. In an ignition system for multi-cylihder4:) degree t'our cycle internal combustion engines, the combination of agenerator adapted to deliver sparking current at intervals of 45 and 135degrees, of a distributing device consisting of a block having contactsequally spaced apart in two rows and in number corresponding to thenumber of engine cylinders and a distributing member driven at hal fengine crank shaft speed with current connecting means to receive thecurrent from said generator, said member carrying two brushes arrangedone 225 degrees behind the other in an adjacent plane corresponding toone of said rows of contacts whereby spark-- ing current is delivered tosaid contacts at intervals of 22%; and 674; degrees of rotation of thesaid member.

13. In an ignition system for multi-cylinder *5 degree four cycleinternal combustion engines, the combination of a generator adapted todeliver sparking current at intervals of 45 and 135 degrees, of adistributing device consisting of a block having contacts equally spacedapart in two rows and in number corresponding to the number of enginecylinders and a distributing member driven at half engine crank shaftspeed with current connecting means toreceive the current from saidgenerator, said member carry- 110 ing brushes so arranged as to deliverthe sparking current to said contacts at intervals of 229; and 67-}degrees of rotation of the said member,.with means for starting saidengine consisting of an auxiliary source of current, sparking contactscarried by said distributing member in retarded position from saidbrushes and means for connecting said starting current to said sparkingcontacts as described.

In witness whereof, I aflix my si nature. ALFRED 0. DE L'oRME.

